Image source: Visual China
The dispute between Zhihu and Huang Yuanpu, the founder of Yiou, reflects the dilemma of anonymous social networking.
On the 25th, Zhihu issued a community announcement on the special action of "Clearing and Optimizing the Business Network Environment".
According to the announcement, in order to create a good community ecology, Zhihu strictly follows the requirements of the special action of "Clear and Optimized Business Network Environment", continues to deeply deal with false and infringing information involving enterprises and entrepreneurs, resolutely cracks down on malicious speculation, investigates and punishes content and accounts that infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises and entrepreneurs in accordance with the law, and provides a good online discussion atmosphere for enterprise development.
Zhihu issued a community announcement on the special action of "Clear and Optimize the Business Network Environment"
The incident stemmed from the fact that Huang Yuanpu, the founder of Yiou, posted in the WeChat circle of friends, criticizing Zhihu's anonymous defamation and its counter-evidence rules.
He said that recently some netizens posted anonymously in Zhihu that Huang Yuanpu had spent money to buy the "Shanghai Youth May Fourth Medal" and spent money to obtain admission to the New York University Business School. Then, Huang Yuanpu continued to issue an open letter, saying that he would report Zhihu and Zhihu founder Zhou Yuan in his real name.
Subsequently, both the Zhihu platform and Zhou Yuan himself responded to this, and said that they would adjust the anonymous function of the community.
This may be an important mechanism for the nearly 13-year-old Internet company to adjust its platform again.
At the dawn of the Internet, anonymity was the most mainstream mechanism. The Internet has established a set of anonymous expression mechanisms, under which users can realize the rebirth of social networks, achieve personality reconstruction in the virtual space, speak freely, express positions, and avoid inviting risks to themselves.
Anonymity can also be said to be a self-protection mechanism. However, once they are separated from the constraints of real identity and relationship chains in real society, people also seem to be not responsible for speech, they show their desires and evils more nakedly, and problems such as online violence have intensified.
In the business world, there is still a market demand for anonymous expression. And when the traffic is surging, the platform can hardly resist this temptation and give up the potential business interests behind it.
Knowing the anonymity mechanism that is about to change
The beginning of everything came from June 20, Yiou founder Huang Yuanpu posted in WeChat Moments to "bombard" Zhihu's anonymous defamation and its counter-evidence rules.
He sent a message to Zhou Yuan, founder and CEO of Zhihu, hoping that Zhihu could open the counter-evidence function, and if he could prove that the anonymous person was defamatory, he would ask for his identity to be made public. However, Zhou Yuan himself did not respond to him, and he deleted Zhou Yuan's WeChat in anger.
Huang Yuanpu's successive Moments of Friends content is fiercely worded, obviously a little angry.
Zhihu platform told Titanium Media APP that after the incident, the platform tried to contact Huang Yuanpu through multiple channels, including asking friends to introduce him, but Huang Yuanpu refused to communicate with them.
The next day, on the 21st, Huang Yuanpu continued to release an open letter, saying that he would report Zhihu and Zhihu founder Zhou Yuan in his real name.
In response, Zhihu responded that Zhihu has a sound community governance mechanism and opposes acts such as fabricating false information and maliciously slandering others. Users are welcome to feedback to us through the "report" channel, and the platform will verify and deal with it as soon as possible.
But this has not stopped the further fermentation of public opinion. On the 22nd, Zhou Yuan also publicly released a circle of friends to officially respond to this matter.
Zhou Yuan said that Zhihu's anonymity function is about to be adjusted, and personal attacks are not welcome in the community. Anonymity was an early product mechanism for the community, and the original intention was to maintain a community environment of open discussion, where users could share their personal experiences without personal privacy concerns. Anonymity needs to be based on friendly and interactive users.
Screenshot of Zhou Yuan's circle of friends
However, in today's complex communication environment, this mechanism has also caused more and more trouble, and Zhihu will change.
Zhou Yuan and the team are rethinking privacy protection and benign discussion mechanism, specific adjustment measures for the anonymity function will be released in the near future, Zhihu has also been strengthening the community's content governance and user report processing process optimization, under the compliance and formal channel, the little housekeeper will respond to everyone in a timely manner.
In fact, the so-called "anonymity" of Zhihu is not really anonymous.
"If you walk into someone's yard, others have the right to know." This is an answer to a question that Zhihu officially explained to users in 2017.
At that time, under the background of the Internet real-name system, Zhihu also announced the launch of the anonymity mechanism reform, requiring users to use Zhihu services, must verify the mobile phone number, after real-name authentication, users can choose "background real name, front desk anonymous".
Anonymous identity or anonymous status on Zhihu means that the user's identity on a certain problem page is kept confidential and does not want other users to know their true identity. Users can use this feature when it is not convenient for them to ask or answer questions or answers in a public capacity.
There is only one anonymous state on Zhihu, which is anonymity on the entire problem page. Both the questions and answers are consistent, either real-name or anonymous.
Zhihu's anonymous state is reversible, and users can switch from the real-name state to the anonymous state at any time, and can also switch from the anonymous state to the real-name state.
Zhihu officially said that there is only one way to view anonymous user information, which is to determine by analyzing the source data in the database in detail. The team has no more than two members who can access the database. The anonymous user's data is placed separately, and the data access permissions are separated, that is, the two people cooperate to analyze the data and view the anonymous user information.
Zhihu protects the identity of anonymous users from being disclosed, does not approve of finding the true identity of anonymous users by means of comments or questions, users are responsible for the content they publish, and are not allowed to attack others anonymously, leak others' privacy and other behaviors.
"Explosion is extinguished", anonymous social products can not escape the curse
"Online anonymity turns people into complete jerks, and this product is unlikely to last long from a commercial or ethical point of view." In 2015, Wired magazine said in a review of Secret's collapse.
At that time, Secret, the star product of "anonymous social" in the United States and the former darling of Silicon Valley, announced its closure, less than 16 months after its launch.
Secret's collapse shocked everyone. As soon as this product came out, it won the favor and pursuit of star venture capital, a large number of users flocked to it, and once caused anxiety on Facebook and Zuckerberg.
Secret Angels, Series A, and B raised a total of $35 million, with a valuation of $100 million, and it took only 9 months to announce the closure. At its peak, Secret ranked first in the App Store download list in 8 countries, including Brazil, Sweden, Israel, and Mexico.
However, due to its anonymous nature, Secret has become a hub for gossip, self-complaints, and online violence. Secret's developers and managers didn't solve this problem effectively.
David Byttow, the CEO of Secret, wrote on his blog that the big reason for shutting down Secret was the verbal violence brought about by Secret Anonymity, and the company had tried to build an anti-violence system to solve the problem, but it was ultimately unsuccessful.
Beato wrote in a statement that he failed to directly address the problem of online violence on Secret, and that the app deviated from his original intention when he started his business.
Like Secret, over the years, countless anonymous social networking products have been silently released and quietly fallen. But that hasn't stopped the appeal of "anonymity" to entrepreneurs and users.
In 2019, there was the last wave of anonymous social networking in the Chinese internet sector to date.
In the context of Douyin's launch of the first video social product Multiflash to publicly call WeChat, a number of star entrepreneurs have released social products, including Luo Yonghao's "Chat Bao", and Kuaibo founder Wang Xin released "Toilet MT", and they all chose to go online on the same day.
Wang Xin's "toilet MT" is mainly focused on anonymous social networking.
Wang Xin told Titanium Media APP that his company's future products will have social attributes, and this time, it is a breakthrough that he hopes to find in the big track. "Anonymous social networking is just needed, but it is difficult to be done well, and in history, both anonymous social networking at home and abroad has tended to fail, and we want to challenge it."
Wang Xin also told the titanium media APP, "Why did the previous generation of anonymous social die Is it a demand? Is it regulation? Neither. The core reason is continuity. Because a group of people who want to see the inside story and breaking the news quickly gather, the content of the breaking news is not sustainable, so the user stickiness is also reduced. This makes it impossible to monetize commercially and is not sustainable. ”
The reality is that "toilet MT" was banned just one day after it was launched. At that time, it was rumored that it was because the platform was "involved in pornography".
Coincidentally, in April 2019, several products focusing on anonymity mechanisms, including nine apps such as Bilin, Secret Language, and Chat, were forcibly shut down, and the popular audio social product "Yinyu" was also removed due to content moderation issues.
These Internet products, which focus on anonymity, will not end well.
An evolution of anonymous socializing: the popularity of the momo army
At a time when there are more and more real-name systems, and the infinite integration of the cyber world and offline life, the need for human free expression, the expectation of escaping the triviality of the real world and the social pressure of acquaintances are always present.
The rise of the momo army can be said to be a popular variant of the current anonymous expression of netizens.
On major community platforms, more and more users set their avatar as a small pink dinosaur, nicknamed "momo".
Initially, when momo logged in to external software (such as Douban and Xiaohongshu) through WeChat, momo was one of the system's default nicknames. The first momos were those who didn't bother to change their IDs or names.
Everywhere momo
More and more young people take the initiative to put on the new skin of Momo and begin to join the Momo army, wearing the same mask and wearing a batch copy vest, under the cover of Momo identity, they can avoid acquaintances, avoid human flesh searches, and find a sense of identity in the cyber world.
Moreover, a strange phenomenon is that even if you do not authorize the mobile phone address book, you will inexplicably brush the "people you may know" that the platform tries to recommend in the information flow, for many people, surfing the Internet If you meet relatives and friends in real life, the degree of social death can be called "cyber naked".
"It's a coincidence, you're also a momo", "How do you know which momo I am", "Big hidden in the city, small hidden in MO"...
Momo has become ubiquitous, and the existence of momo, currently bound by the online real-name system and social relationship chain, gives everyone a breathing space and the courage to express. The collective anonymity provided by the Momo army provides a layer of protection for netizens to speak.
Momo is also continuing to evolve, and netizens customize unique momo avatars by mutating momo avatars, creating related avatars, and giving it a personalized expression.
Momo is also beginning to evolve towards personalized expression
However, momo is also hated by some people, who call this group "electronic cockroaches." They are vast in number, uncertain in their whereabouts, and regenerate infinitely in dark corners.
Putting on a momo vest does not mean that you can really "do things in one mo, ten thousand mo".
A hot discussion on the Internet is that this year, actor Chen Feiyu's private photos were leaked, which caused a very big sensation on the whole network, and also triggered comments from netizens on many platforms, many of which were untrue.
In the statement of rights protection progress, Chen Feiyu sued a Douban user named "momo". People joke that there may be more momos on Douban than the artists themselves, and they don't know which one to sue.
This incident also rushed to the Weibo hot search list at that time. Subsequently, Chen Feiyu further explained that the momo was the subject of a certain post, and had taken screenshots to lock the infringement remarks made by the momo at that time.
Walk between the boundaries of free expression and law
"Voluntary foreground, real-name in the background" is the mechanism of mainland domestic Internet platforms.
During the "Two Sessions" in 2008, the legislative process of the online real-name system was launched. On December 25, 2012, the mainland proposed to legislate to implement the management of the online identity system, and the Decision on Strengthening the Protection of Network Information was adopted and proposed that the use of any website access service must be real-named, indicating that the mainland has abolished or denied anonymous expression at the policy level.
As a result, the mainland Internet has also fully entered the era of real-name system.
In March 2015, the Provisions on the Administration of Internet User Account Names came into force, and due to the particularity of online transmission, the principle of "voluntary front desk and real name in the background" was adopted, requiring Internet information service users to register accounts after authenticating their real identity information.
What really promotes the real-name system of domestic networks is the real-name system implemented by the three major domestic operators.
From September 1, 2015, telecommunications enterprises must authenticate their ID cards when selling mobile phone cards, and restrict communication and business for non-real-name telephone card customers, and urge non-real-name old customers to complete real-name registration as soon as possible. Mobile Internet access and Internet information services provided by Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu and other enterprises must be bound to mobile phone numbers.
So far, the domestic network real-name system has been unified in terms of system and technology.
But perhaps a question worth pondering is, can we still have the right and space to express ourselves anonymously?
Sweden provides in Chapter III of the Freedom of the Press Act that "the author of any printed matter is under no obligation to disclose his name on the printed matter; No printer, publisher, or person involved in the printing or publication of printed matter, may disclose the identity of the author in any other way against his will except as obliged by law". This is seen as a legal establishment of the right to anonymous expression.
Swedish legislation represents the evolution of the right to anonymous expression towards legal human rights in some countries. In the United States, the right to anonymous expression was first established as a constitutional right. The 1997 decision in Liberty Civil Union v. Miller marked the first time the right to anonymous expression on the Internet was constitutionally enshrined.
The right to anonymous expression is an important part of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and this view has been recognized. In general, the establishment and improvement of the right to anonymous expression in the United States reflects the American liberal tradition and respect for freedom of expression in the First Amendment.
However, it should also be noted that in today's Internet environment, especially with the rapid development of the mobile Internet, many issues do need to be rethought and discussed, including the current user's questioning and controversy over the anonymity mechanism is also one of the important topics.
At this stage, the development of the Internet in mainland China, both in terms of the scale of users and the length of time users have been used, has reached an unprecedented height.
According to the 51st Statistical Report on Internet Development in China released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), as of December 2022, the size of mainland Internet users reached 1.067 billion, an increase of 35.49 million from December 2021, and the Internet penetration rate reached 75.6%.
Internet anonymity makes everyone's expression more free and pluralistic, and some problems that are difficult to solve in the real world can also be solved on the Internet. But anonymity also raises the rise in moral deficiencies, weakening of liability, and infringements. Especially after the spread of anonymous speech, even if there may be a legal answer, but due to the spread of the Internet, the harm caused to people is difficult to repair.
In fact, platforms need to find a balance between free expression, commercial interests and social responsibility, and establish reasonable boundaries.
The difficulty lies in the fact that in online infringement cases, Internet service providers are obliged to keep users' real identity information confidential and protect users' privacy and personal information from being leaked, but users must rely on determining the real identity information of the infringer before they can file a lawsuit.
The real dilemma is that with traffic becoming the dominant factor of commercialization, platforms do not seem to have the motivation to actively censor infringing speech. Platforms are also happy to invoke the "safe harbor" principle and are not responsible for users' actions and opinions.
(This article was first published in Titanium Media APP, author|Li Chengcheng)